


song of sorrow

by sparxwrites



Series: this place is shelter [4]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Aliens, Angst, Bioluminescence, Emotional Baggage, Fluff, Memory Loss, Other, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 10:51:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6800731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“How long has it been since we last did this?” asked Xephos, quietly, expression thoughtful. There was a half-full wineglass in one of his hands, and he circled his wrist absently so that the dark red liquid swirled inside it, ever so slightly. “Had dinner like this, I mean. Not some brief hello, nothing to do with business, just- just us. Catching up.”</p>
<p>(Xephos and Strife decide to spend an evening together catching up over food and wine, and neither of them seem to be able to stop old memories from creeping in.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	song of sorrow

**Author's Note:**

> " _[Scripture slingin' man, I can't seem to find my way back home. / It's been a hundred years, I've no idea which direction to go, / To cease my song of sorrow.](http://junglesvibes1.net/tracks/elle_king_song_of_sorrow.html)_ "
> 
> A comprehensive grammar / lexicon of strife and xephos' language can be found [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Iedtnmo0DhzSHU4YUi-KXuCQ4mhNsvIiIU7k_Z3w3MU/edit). I'd suggest reading the other parts in the series before this - it'll make a lot more sense that way.

“How long has it been since we last did this?” asked Xephos, quietly, expression thoughtful. There was a half-full wineglass in one of his hands, and he circled his wrist absently so that the dark red liquid swirled inside it, ever so slightly. “Had dinner like this, I mean. Not some brief hello, nothing to do with business, just- just us. Catching up.”

Sleepy as he was – stupid with good food and plenty of good wine, a mostly-full glass still sat on the low coffee table before him – Strife took a moment to register that Xephos had spoken, and another to decode the now-unfamiliar lilting lisp of his native language. “Hmm?” he asked, shifting against the leather sofa and turning his head to gaze at Xephos beside him. “Pardon?”

Xephos sighed. “I- nothing,” he murmured, blinking slowly and staring at the wine moving in his glass. “Just... this is nice. It’s been too long since we last saw each other.”

“Mmm.” Will hummed quiet agreement, reaching out to pick up his glass. The wine was slightly warmed, slightly spiced, reminiscent of a hot, bitter alcoholic drink popular back on their home planet. It burned its way down his throat when he took a sip, in a pleasant sort of way, and settled warm in his stomach. “We- we used to do this all the time, y'know. Back- back home-”

“Will...” said Xephos, gently, a clear warning in his voice.

“Nothing as fancy as this, of course – we were both students, we couldn't afford- but-” He cut off as Xephos grabbed his free hand and squeezed it in quiet chastisement. “I know,” he murmured, eyes closing. In the low light of the living room, the luminous green glow of them shone through the delicate skin of his eyelids, tinging them pale emerald. “I know.”

Xephos' mouth twisted with sympathy, and he rubbed his thumb over skin between Will’s thumb and forefinger, the whorls of his thumbprint soft against a small constellation of glowing freckles tucked there. “This is my home now,” he said, words slow and chosen carefully. “I don’t- whatever happened before, I don’t want to hear about it.”

“I _know_ ,” repeated Will, sounding tired, and took another long drink of the wine – perhaps more than was advisable. This was his third glass, and there was already a familiar softness to his head and heaviness to his limbs that told him he’d had just slightly too much. He was hardly going to waste good wine, though, and so he took another sip under Xephos’ watchful, concerned gaze.

They sat like that, in silence, for a long minute that stretched into two, three, five. Xephos sipped slowly and easily at his wine, until the glass was nearly finished, the liquid settling like a slow-burning fire in his already full stomach as he leant forward to set his glass down on the coffee table.

“I’m sorry,” said Xephos, quietly, breaking the silence. He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed, turning to meet Strife’s eyes with a lopsided, apologetic smile curling at his lips, his freckles glowing a sky blue in the low light. “I didn’t mean to-”

He broke off when Strife, as helpless as a planet dragged into orbit by a too-bright star, leaned in and kissed him.

Strife’s lips were warm, wine-spiced, faintly chapped where they pressed against Xephos’s softer ones. It was a chaste kiss, close-mouthed, but that didn’t stop it from being achingly intimate – the warmth of Strife’s breath against his skin was enough to make his heart stop, and their freckles combined lit up the shadowed space between them with seafoam light. They fit together perfectly, _more_ than perfectly, the motion almost instinct as Xephos angled his head just so and pressed in, melting into Strife without a second thought, lips parting-

It wasn’t a first kiss, Xephos realised, the bottom of his stomach dropping out in a slow lurch.

Strife’s eyes were heavy-lidded as he pulled away, old and sad and _starving_ for a heartbeat before he let them fall closed. “I’m… sorry,” he said, voice rough, as Xephos reached two fingers up in an almost reverent gesture to touch his lips. “I shouldn’t- that wasn’t fair. That wasn’t- you’re not-”

Blowing out a slow breath, he carded a trembling hand through his hair, and his eyes flickered open again – darting, green, near-lightless. “I- should go.”

He made to stand, but Xephos wrapped gentle, tentative fingers around his wrist and tugged. The grip was light, but his hand may have been a manacle of welded steel for all Strife could pull away. “No,” he said, a note of pleading in voice. “Don’t- I-” He broke off, desperately trying to lock eyes with Strife – desperately trying to _understand_. “What _was_ that?”

The fingers around Strife’s wrist gentled even further, a soft thumbprint pressed over the inside of his wrist, over his pulse point. Xephos could feel the beat of his heart there, rabbit-fast and frightened. “Please, I- explain. I need to- to know…” _What we were to one another_ , he thought, but didn’t say.

Strife exhaled, slow and unsteady. He couldn’t bring himself to meet Xephos’ gaze.

“When- a long time ago,” he started, quietly. “I knew someone. Back on my home planet. They…” He sighed, a half-smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “I don’t even know how to describe it. They were… _everything_. Clever, compassionate, funny. Dedicated to their studies.” He paused, almost uncertainly, eyes darting sideways to Xephos’ face and then away again. “…Beautiful.”

“ _Will_ …” breathed Xephos, trailing off as Strife’s wrist flexed under his delicate grip, work-calloused fingers curling into fists.

“We were… together,” he continued, and it sounded like the words were torn out of him, grinding somewhere in the middle of his chest. “I lo-” The words choked him, this time, with something that sounded almost like a sob. His fingers flexed again, body taut like a plucked wire. “They were- important. To me. We hardly had any free time – I was trying to fit a four-year course into two, and they were in the last year of being fast-tracked for command, so- but- but we made it work. I never knew what they saw in me, I was just- just _strɔɪf_ , but-”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, and he had to take a deep, steadying breath. “They graduated, end of my first year. Went off on their first proper placement at the beginning of my second. Two months aboard a small, non-military vessel, patrol and research, nothing onerous. They were so proud.” Then, quieter, “ _I_ was so proud…”

The memory hit Xephos like a physical blow – a military uniform and close-cropped hair, the weight of a phaser in his hand, excitement through every inch of him as someone lit up a brilliant, luminescent green waved to him. “What happened?” he asked, voice little more than a whisper, horror coiling like a living thing deep in his gut.

“You’re the only one that knows that,” said Strife, snorting quietly. “And you don’t remember- don’t _want_ to remember.” There was almost an _anger_ to his words, a harsh edge that matched a rising tension in the line of his back and shoulders. “The… We lost contact with the ship two weeks in. No one knows what happened. I- I moved on.”

_Eventually_ hung in the air between them, unspoken. Even that sounded like a lie.

Strife laughed – a soft, forced, bitter thing – and finally turned to look at Xephos. “You look… so much like them,” he murmured, eyes somehow _hungry_ as he searched Xephos’ face for- _something_ , roaming over the familiar contours of it, the welcoming softness of blue-almond eyes, the constellations of freckles he’d kissed so often. “Even after all these years, even with the- the new scars, and the new clothes, and the new hair, you’re still the _same_ …”

Xephos was stricken, pinned under Strife’s gaze like a butterfly on a board. “Will…” he managed, again, swallowing hard to take the dry rasp from his words. “Why- why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

“You didn’t want me to,” murmured Strife, finally managing to tug his wrist free from the lax circle Xephos’ nerveless, trembling fingers had formed around it. He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and Xephos _saw_ it – the change, as Strife pulled himself together, straightened his spine and squared his shoulders and pulled the mask down until he was all sharp edges and pointed corners again.

Even the mask, though, couldn’t hide the tightness of his jaw and the too-damp glitter in the corners of his eyes as he turned towards the door, hands still curled tight into white-knuckled fists. “You didn’t want to know.”


End file.
